The jobs report in six charts

Posted by Dylan Matthews on January 4, 2013 at 9:53 am

Unemployment and payroll numbers
The jobs market continued to recover slowly but surely. We gained 155,000 jobs in December, almost exactly as forecasters predicted, and unemployment was unchanged at a revised 7.8 percent. Then again, last month’s job gains were revised upward from 146,000 to 161,000; taking that and October’s downward revision of 1,000 into account, the total job gains found in the report number 169,000:

Public/private
Adding to a disturbing pattern of recent months, the jobs gained in December were exclusively in the private sector. That sector gained 168,000 jobs, while the public sector, suffering from federal and state austerity policies, lost 13,000:

Sectoral
Job sectors were hit to varying degrees by the downturn. Construction took the heaviest hit, while health and education were barely hurt at all. The pattern stayed firm in December; even as construction jobs logged a welcome gain of 30,000 positions, education and health added a whopping 65,000 jobs.